Indian Grandmasters Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Adhiban Baskaran registered wins in the first game of the two-game mini match in the second round of the FIDE chess World Cup in Sochi on Thursday.
The announcement was made by Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on his Twitter page
India suffered a double blow, losing its third and fourth round matches to Europe and top-seeded China by similar 1.5-2.5 margins, on the second day of the FIDE-Chess.com Online Nations Cup on Wednesday. Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand came up against a strong opponent in Ding Liren and the two agreed to sign peace in 54 moves. P Harikrishna held higher-rated Yu Yangyi to a draw while long-time rivals Koneru Humpy and Hou Yifan drew their game.
'The win will change a lot of things in Praggu... the confidence in his potential will be one of them. The win has ensured a lot of visibility which will give him a lot of opportunities.'
World champion Viswanathan Anand continued to reign supreme bagging the Chess Oscar for the sixth time and becoming the first non-Russian to do so. Anand received the award from International Chess Federation (FIDE) President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov before the start of the President's Cup.
FIDE corrected the ranking error to crown the Indian ace as the top ranked player in the world.
The FIDE list shows Veselin Topalov still on the top without including the points earned at the Morelia-Linares tournament.
Anand became the world number one for the first time in his career by virtue of winning the Morelia-Linares classical chess tournament.
The chess wizard said there must have been some "genuine technical problem" behind FIDE's initial decision.
Let's all join in and congratulate the new king of the 64 squares board.
Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand will lead India's charge at the online Nations Cup beginning on Tuesday, where some of the world's best players will face off amid the coronavirus pandemic which has thrown the sporting calendars out of gear. The six-team event, touted to the richest online team tournament, features all the big names in the game with World champion Magnus Carlsen being the only big gun missing from the line-up.
World rapid champion Koneru Humpy claimed her second title in the last two months by emerging triumphant at the Cairns Cup chess tournament following a draw against compatriot Dronavalli Harika in the ninth and final round, in St Louis, United States. Humpy, who was crowned World champion in December, finished the tournament with six points. The icing on the cake was that Humpy will gain five ELO rating points (the basis for international rankings) and move to second place in the world rankings.
Over the past few months, the overall interest in chess is reported to have doubled, with more players than ever coming together to participate in chess events that are being increasingly held through online platforms
Chess grandmasters resume COVID-delayed tournament in Russia
Organizers of the World Chess Championship sued on Monday to block a trio of website operators from broadcasting chess moves at the November 11-30 match in New York, which is expected to draw millions of online viewers.
FIDE said in a statement that the game of chess has a "genuine global appeal" and that it has 189 national federations and 600 million people who practice chess globally.
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